Morning Notes

New Long-Haul Flights Coming to DCA — Three new long-haul flights to western cities are being added at Reagan National Airport. A new United flight to San Francisco will start in May, and flights to Salt Lake City and Los Angeles will start in June. While travelers may be happy about the new nonstop options, some Arlington residents are concerned about the potential for added noise from the larger planes necessary for the long-haul flights. [Sun Gazette, Washington Business Journal]

Metro Track Work This Week — Metro is working on the Blue Line this week, and those who travel between the District and Arlington around midday may experience some delays as a result. Metro is single-tracking between Foggy Bottom and Arlington Cemetery from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. each day through Friday. Crews are performing “rail, fastener, tie and insulator renewal.” Riders should add an extra 10 minutes to their travel time, according to Metro. Orange Line passengers may also experience brief delays as a result of the Blue Line work. [WMATA]

Pricey Rehab Options for Reeves Farm — The historic Reeves Farm, located near Bluemont Park, is in need of rehabilitation. According to a new report, it will cost between $1.1 and $1.3 million to convert the Reeves farmhouse to a learning center or demonstration kitchen. [Arlington Mercury]

Retailers Helping Arlington’s Car-Free Diet — The Arlington County Commuter Services Bureau has partnered with 327 local retailers to help promote its Car-Free Diet campaign. You can find a map and a list of specific options for getting to each retailer without a car on the Car-Free Diet web site. [TBD]

Large planes are not necessary, Alaska already does a non stop from DCA to LAX on a 737, same for United to Las Vegas. I have taken those flights routinely over the past several years and have only once gotten a 757 which I believe is the maximum size allowed at DCA.

FF

And large planes aren’t necessarily louder either. For jets, it’s usually a function of the age of the plane, not the size.

Arlington, Northside

As long as they limit the take off times for the louder jets, I have no problem with it. The planes make almost no noise until they come to a stop when landing.

It includes historical info (e.g. you can look at yesterday’s sound levels). The little squares show dBA level; they change color (green/yellow/red) as sound level goes up. You sorta have to play around with the page to get it to work. I could only get the page to work in Internet Explorer, but it does work.

Joe Deo

Exactly … B757 is the largest allowed at DCA without an exception and are routinely flown there now ….. During the inauguration Delta brought some 767 wide bodies in, but had to file for special permission

In fact most of these new routings are on a B738 …. please report facts accurately, not cause hysteria

ArLater

Seriously, reckless reporting by ArlNow on this one. Glad to see everyone not freaking out over nothing about this. There will be zero noticable difference in plane noise from this.

Sam

How is it reckless? Do people even click on the links provided? The Sun Gazette article is about people being upset over the additional perimeter exemption slots.

Joe Deo

Which they have no reason to be … the flights will be mixed B738/B757 … which fly often into DCA now. In fact, who knows, maybe it will be B738NG (nextgen) which are quieter than most of what flies in now

ArLater

Just because one article posts something incorrect does not give ArlNow the right to re post the same incorrect statement. That is reckless.

Cakes

Get over yourself.

http://www.arlnow.com ARLnow.com

Some people are reading too much into the word “larger.” We mean “larger” in the relative sense, not the absolute sense.

HayCaramba

This is just dumb. if this weren’t reported and those flights started, no one would wake up one day and say

“HHmm do you feel like it has been louder lately?? why yes, i think so, they must be flying larger planes into dca!! OMGzZZZz!!”

Lloyd

I bet most of these new flights will replace RJ flights, so in a literal sense, there will be larger planes replacing the smaller ones on a per slot basis.

Max

No special permission. 763s can fly into DCA but they would struggle flying across the country because they would be weight restricted which is why only cities like Atlanta or Chicago would make sense. Even a 752 would be weight restricted to SFO which is why United is using a 737 on that route. The other issue is gate space. Only 3 gates are fitted for 767s and the terminals are already congested.

Fun fact: a DC-10 once landed at DCA when IAD and BWI were closed and it had nowhere else to land. It did just fine.

Arlington, Northside

True, but if I remember right it had to take off with a minimal amount of fuel to make it off our extremly short runway(in relative modern terms).

Max

Oh yeah, the passengers were bussed to BWI. They took out everything that could be taken out before take off, including the meal carts and the seat cushions according to one report. The cargo stayed on though since DCA didnt have the ability to offload it. It still left the runway with over 1000 feet to spare.

San Diego certainly has an, shall we say, interesting location. But I find the Oakland and SFO airports to be more dramatic, in that the runway shows up at the last moment depending on which side you are sitting on and before it does it looks like you’re landing in the water.

Flying in to National is the only time I’ve experienced an aborted landing – getting all the way to Gravelly Point park before suddenly jetting back up and to one side. But flying overseas I think you’ll routinely experience worse.

aborted landing

air traffic controller asleep? That happened to us at Dulles once- apparently another plane was already on the runway

zzzzz

That happened to me once on a flight into LaGuardia. I was used to the whole touch-down-as soon-as-the-runway-is-beneath-you experience there, but one night we didn’t touch down right away, and suddenly the nose of the plane jerked up again and as I looked out the window I a building below us.

We saw some nice scenery circling around Manhattan for our second attempt to land, but it was somewhat marred by the young women freaking out in the row behind me.

ArlingtonChick

I’ve landed in HK. It’s terrifying. I’d be scared at landing in DCA if I didn’t grow up here and use DCA for most of my travel.

Thanks including the link. That was a terrific landing – although I am sure the passengers were not thrilled.

Joe Deo

I should clarify — you are reporting what the others said, they are the ones who messed up. Also there are many more outside perimeter slots coming for those OTHER than the big three … all part of the new rule and already approved

BreakPause02

I find some of the loudest jets are the small “regional” jets rather than the mainline 737 and A320s.

Also, I find that it depends what takeoff path they take. I’ve been in Clarendon some weekends where it seems they take off and fly more westernly, rather than over the river or Roslyn, thus its louder towards residential areas.

Other times, you can barely hear, no matter what the plane.

Joe Deo

Its the MD-80/82, mostly flown by AA and some DL, that are the worst. They literally sound like freight trains taking off. They also leave a trail of black smoke.

BreakPause02

But those planes are awesome to fly as long as your not in the back. Super quiet, and only 1 middle seat.

Sam

The MD-88’s that Delta flies are horrible whereas the AF A380 was probably one of the quietest planes I’ve ever flown on.

ArLater

Second that. A380 was amazing

BreakPause02

When is it coming to DCA?

Brian K

Ha, I hope you are joking. I’ve been on both Qantas and Emirates whalejets, so love that bird.

Max

No DCA but Air France flies one to IAD in the summer.

Lee

Does anyone know what prompted the all-night construction activity along Wilson Blvd, between Virginia Square and Ballston? It was extremely loud throughout the entire night – trucks coming and going; drilling; pounding; etc.

BreakPause02

Maybe the road was finally repaved?

Clarendon Skank

I loved the pounding and drilling all night.

ArlForester

Hipsters looking for homes.

Aar

What interseciton are you are talking about?

ArlForester

Maybe Sandra Fluke was staying over at someone’s house.

Southeast Jerome

+1

zzzzz

-1,000,000

nunya

that was rush limbo trying to get out of his chair.

ArlForester

humor fail.

novasteve

What larger planes? The largest narrowbody there is, the 757, already flies out of national.

MC

This photo captures an enduring eyesore: the Dominion Power station at Clarendon, which was supposed to be covered over with something pleasant looking ages ago. It was even reported so on this blog. Why hasn’t Dominion done anything yet?